Simply place the PO files under a project called “pootle”, and the appropriate language directory. The neat thing is, you can translate Pootle live - any changes you make to the translations via Pootle will immediately appear in the interface. You currently need to select the language on login.

{omgs: What are projects basics? Where do they live in? What permissions are needed for managing projects files and directories? }

After Pootle has been sucessfully installed, you can add your own PO project.
Use the administration/administrator login to create the language (if needed) and project. This will create the needed project directory.

The directive podirectory in pootle.prefs defines where you will find the po files, so set that first. Then in that directory (we'll assume you are using pootle/po) you need to create the project and the language(s).

ie. pootle/po/project/language

eg. pootle/po/openoffice/af

In the example we created a project directory for the project called openoffice and the language af (Afrikaans). You now place your PO files in this directory. Restart the server - and only then will they show in Pootle.

If you're an administrator for the project, you should see a link at the top of the page to admin.html (e.g. da/pootle/admin.html) which is the admin page for that project. This page enables you to adjust user rights etc. If you want you can also do it manually:

In your po/project/language edit the following file pootle-project-language.prefs

You can define goals at the language/project level. A goal contains a subset of files and directories of the main project.
You need to have admin rights for the language/project in order to be able to define goals.

Click on the Show Goals link and the interface will allow you to create a new named goal and to add files to that goal.

Next you need to add people to that goal. Simply select the user from the dropdown list.

Next you can assign work within the goal to the translators in that goal. Or you can get Pootle to share the work evenly between all translators.